VANS Head Quarters mural commission, Los Angeles CA

As of 2013, this is the largest piece I have ever created over my decade long career. Coming in at 96′ x 4′, all acrylic on custom built panels. Its nearly as long as a city block. This was commissioned by VANS for their new building they just moved into in November 2013. I have had a wonderful relationship with this iconic company since 2007 having done a custom slip on, posters, and other fine art commissions, but this, really, is in its own category all together looking over my entire decade career.

This process simply began in a brief email asking if I was interested in creating a mural of this scale, and had to be done within 3 months. Like previous projects I was left to my own creative direction. The only requirements where that it obviously had to reflect the ethos and history of the VANS culture and the So-Cal lifestyle. From the original digital sketch I proposed to the final approval, the VP suggested several VANS iconography elements like the side stripe, checkers, waffle pattern and the original Van Doren logo. These added elements really brought the piece together and added another layer of graphic dynamism complementing the neighboring painterly pieces. The piece was meant to be presented in its entirety but was also designed to be broken up if needed in the future.

The logistics of creating a piece like this in our studio and for it to travel over 1000 miles away at another location poses many challenges. Suffice to say it went incredibly smoothly. With the help of 5 assistants over the course of 2 months intensely building, prepping, painting and packing we met our deadline with astounding results. An interesting result was that all my creative evolutions are represented here, dating back to ’92 with the beginning of my graffiti days.

Lastly, I regularly posted photos of this process on instagram, you can view the journey under this hashtag: #fontanavansmural